Recent Progress on Energy Harvesters for Biomedical Applications

Energy harvesting devices have emerged as a promising technology to not only meet global energy demands but also power biomedical electronics. The dramatic advancement in self-powered biomedical electronics used for monitoring and treatment of severe diseases is part of a paradigm shift that is on the horizon. The review paper highlights recent progress on energy harvesters for scavenging energy to realize self-powered systems. The emphasis is mainly on piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators addressing the basic operating principle, electrical model, design techniques, newly developed materials and their performance as well as associated typical applications. Herein, piezoelectric devices have been compared on basis of their materials, energy conversion efficiency, piezoelectric coefficient and power harvesting circuit. In addition, the recent advances of hybrid nanogenerators in terms of its biomedical applications are also highlighted. Finally, the conclusions and future prospects towards self-powered systems for implantable and wearable medical electronic devices are discussed for effective health monitoring, bio-sensing and clinical therapy.

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A Micromachined Coupled-Cantilever for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

10.20944/preprints201804.0103.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Agin Vyas ◽

L. G. H. Staaf ◽

Cristina Rusu ◽

Thorbjörn Ebefors ◽

Jessica Liljeholm ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Degrees Of Freedom ◽

Mechanical Response ◽

Vibrational Energy ◽

Energy Conversion Efficiency ◽

High Energy ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

Piezoelectric Energy ◽

Dual Resonance ◽

Self Powered ◽

Micro Cantilever

This paper presents a demonstration of the feasibility of fabricating micro-cantilever harvesters with extended stress distribution and enhanced bandwidth by exploiting an M-shaped two-degrees-of-freedom design. The measured mechanical response of the fabricated device displays the predicted dual resonance peak behavior with the fundamental peak at the intended frequency. This design has the features of high energy conversion efficiency in a miniaturized environment where the available vibrational energy varies in frequency. It makes such a design suitable for future large volume production of integrated self powered sensors nodes for the Internet-of-Things.

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Recent developments of hybrid piezo-triboelectric nanogenerators for flexible sensors and energy harvesters

Nanoscale Advances ◽

10.1039/d1na00501d ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jin Zhang ◽

Yilin He ◽

Cyrille Boyer ◽

Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh ◽

Shuhua Peng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Flexible Sensors ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

New Class ◽

Recent Developments ◽

Self Powered ◽

Triboelectric Nanogenerators ◽

Power Needs

Hybrid piezo-triboelectric nanogenerators constitute a new class of self-powered systems that exploit the synergy of piezoelectric and triboelectric mechanisms to address the energy and power needs for portable and wearable...

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Recent Progress in Self-Powered Sensors Based on Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21217129 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (21) ◽

pp. 7129

Author(s):

Junpeng Wu ◽

Yang Zheng ◽

Xiaoyi Li

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Energy ◽

Rapid Development ◽

Electrical Energy ◽

Displacement Current ◽

Triboelectric Nanogenerator ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

The Future ◽

Quantitative Analysis Method ◽

Self Powered ◽

Triboelectric Nanogenerators

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has subverted people’s lives, causing the rapid development of sensor technologies. However, traditional sensor energy sources, like batteries, suffer from the pollution problem and the limited lifetime for powering widely implemented electronics or sensors. Therefore, it is essential to obtain self-powered sensors integrated with renewable energy harvesters. The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), which can convert the surrounding mechanical energy into electrical energy based on the surface triboelectrification effect, was born of this background. This paper systematically introduces the working principle of the TENG-based self-powered sensor, including the triboelectrification effect, Maxwell’s displacement current, and quantitative analysis method. Meanwhile, this paper also reviews the recent application of TENG in different fields and summarizes the future development and current problems of TENG. We believe that there will be a rise of TENG-based self-powered sensors in the future.

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Recent Progress in Self-Powered Skin Sensors

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s19122763 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (12) ◽

pp. 2763 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Jihong Rao ◽

Zetong Chen ◽

Danna Zhao ◽

Yajiang Yin ◽

Xiaofeng Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Medical Care ◽

Energy Supply ◽

Recent Progress ◽

The Self ◽

Body Motion ◽

Device Structure ◽

Working Mechanism ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

Self Powered ◽

Significant Attention

Self-powered skin sensors have attracted significant attention in recent years due to their great potential in medical care, robotics, prosthetics, and sports. More importantly, self-powered skin sensors do not need any energy-supply components like batteries, which allows them to work sustainably and saves them the trouble of replacement of batteries. The self-powered skin sensors are mainly based on energy harvesters, with the device itself generating electrical signals when triggered by the detected stimulus or analyte, such as body motion, touch/pressure, acoustic sound, and chemicals in sweat. Herein, the recent research achievements of self-powered skin sensors are comprehensively and systematically reviewed. According to the different monitoring signals, the self-powered skin sensors are summarized and discussed with a focus on the working mechanism, device structure, and the sensing principle. Based on the recent progress, the key challenges that exist and the opportunities that lie ahead are also discussed.

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Recent progress in carbon-dots-based nanozymes for chemosensing and biomedical applications

Chinese Chemical Letters ◽

10.1016/j.cclet.2021.03.078 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Deming He ◽

Minmin Yan ◽

Pengjuan Sun ◽

Yuanqiang Sun ◽

Lingbo Qu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Carbon Dots ◽

Biomedical Applications ◽

Recent Progress

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Polydopamine antibacterial materials

Materials Horizons ◽

10.1039/d0mh01985b ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yu Fu ◽

Lei Yang ◽

Jianhua Zhang ◽

Junfei Hu ◽

Gaigai Duan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Biomedical Applications ◽

Recent Progress ◽

Antibacterial Materials ◽

Functional Features

This review focuses on the recent progress in polydopamine antibacterial materials, including their structural and functional features, preparation strategies, antibacterial mechanisms, and their biomedical applications.

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A High Sensitivity Self-Powered Wind Speed Sensor Based on Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs)

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21092951 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (9) ◽

pp. 2951

Author(s):

Yangming Liu ◽

Jialin Liu ◽

Lufeng Che

Keyword(s):

Wind Speed ◽

High Sensitivity ◽

Electrical Signal ◽

Geometrical Parameters ◽

Sensor Systems ◽

Speed Sensor ◽

Speed Range ◽

Self Powered ◽

Triboelectric Nanogenerators ◽

Application Prospects

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have excellent properties in harvesting tiny environmental energy and self-powered sensor systems with extensive application prospects. Here, we report a high sensitivity self-powered wind speed sensor based on triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). The sensor consists of the upper and lower two identical TENGs. The output electrical signal of each TENG can be used to detect wind speed so that we can make sure that the measurement is correct by two TENGs. We study the influence of different geometrical parameters on its sensitivity and then select a set of parameters with a relatively good output electrical signal. The sensitivity of the wind speed sensor with this set of parameters is 1.79 μA/(m/s) under a wind speed range from 15 m/s to 25 m/s. The sensor can light 50 LEDs at the wind speed of 15 m/s. This work not only advances the development of self-powered wind sensor systems but also promotes the application of wind speed sensing.

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